According to experimental psychologist and cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, the least violent and therefor most peaceful time in history is the time we're living in right now. There are parts of the world that might have a hard time with this theory. For example, the people inhabiting the current desert of war-torn Iraq might have reasonable difficulty believing such an idea. Furthermore, the American soldiers still being deployed into the chaos of conflict might feel the need to argue with said Harvard professor of psychology. Clint Eastwood's new movie, American Sniper, certainly makes no attempts to support the concept of peace in our modern world. The question is: What does the movie support?

Based on Chris Kyle's autobiography, the film explores the psychology of a Navy SEAL in the heat of battle as well as in the quiet of his home. This complex portrait of a man praised as an American hero conjures difficult questions about mental illness, cultural ideologies and conditioned philosophi...